By Peter Hans President, University of North Carolina System RALEIGH (May 1, 2025) – For more than 70 years, federal funding for university research has been a patriotic bargain and a core driver of national strength. Coming out of World War II, American leaders recognized that dominance in emerging fields is key to national power…. READ MORE
Holden Thorp: A ‘ruthless takedown of academia’
By Holden Thorp EDITOR’S NOTE: Former UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp is now Editor-in-Chief of the Science Family of Journals. He posted this yesterday. WASHINGTON (February 11, 2025) – Late last week, the Trump administration set off a frenzy in the US scientific community when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that indirect… READ MORE
New Trump directive to federal health & research agencies could hit NC in the pocketbook
By Rose Hoban NC Health News CHAPEL HILL (January 27, 2025) — Medical and biomedical researchers across North Carolina are used to pondering some of the most vexing questions in health and biology, but a directive issued last week by President Donald Trump left many without answers when it came to the future of their… READ MORE
The research threat to NC universities
CHAPEL HILL (January 23, 2025) – With Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, the National Institutes of Health are “in the crosshairs“ for budget cuts, declared NPR. That could take a significant toll in the Research Triangle, where UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke together receive more than $2 billion a year in federal research… READ MORE
Roberts on AI: ‘The most important technological development’
CHAPEL HILL (October 23, 2024) – We all wonder how artificial intelligence will affect our lives. UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Lee Roberts wonders how it will affect the life of the university. Of four working groups Roberts appointed as interim chancellor last spring, the report from the working group on Generative AI is necessarily the… READ MORE
READDI – or not? – for the next pandemic
CHAPEL HILL (September 28, 2023) – Many of us don’t worry much about Covid-19 these days, despite a recent uptick in infections. But researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill are already preparing for the next viral pandemic.1 “It’s a question of when – not if,” Dr. Nat Moorman, co-founder of the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative… READ MORE
“We need to find a solution”: The impact of ECU research
By Leslie Boney GREENVILLE (September 7, 2023) – Dr. Rukiyah Van Dross-Anderson has made a discovery that could stop skin cancer in its tracks. The molecule she is developing in her lab at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University appears to be able to stop some melanoma cells from growing and to… READ MORE
Suzanne Barbour: Science is a team sport
Each fall, UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz co-teaches a seminar for graduate students – professors of the future – called ‘The American Professoriate.’ The class focuses on the role of public universities. This year, he teaches with Matt Springer and Buck Goldstein from the School of Education and Dean Suzanne Barbour of the Graduate… READ MORE
RTI Forethought: Get READDI for the next pandemic
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK (November 11, 2021) – As we struggle to emerge from one pandemic, RTI International is putting at least $5 million into an effort with researchers from four Triangle universities to confront the next one. As part of its Forethought Research Collaboration Challenge, the nonprofit research institute RTI challenged researchers last spring to… READ MORE
Caudill: If ever basic research mattered…
By W. Lowry Caudill CHAPEL HILL – We need an answer for coronavirus in a hurry. Scientific research generally doesn’t happen in a hurry. So thank goodness for the work Dr. Ralph Baric has done for the past six years in a secret lab at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Baric and… READ MORE